An inkjet printer is an example of a liquid discharge apparatus equipped with a liquid discharge head having a liquid discharge surface with rows of liquid discharge holes for discharging liquid droplets. Inkjet printers are widely used for reasons such as low operating cost, color printed images, and the compact size of the apparatuses.
A typical inkjet printer records images by discharging minute amounts of ink from minute ink discharge holes formed on an ink discharge surface on a print head. When printing is not performed for a long period of time and ink is not discharged from the ink discharge holes of the print head, the ink attached around the ink discharge holes on the ink discharge surface from the previous printing operation may vaporize and dry, causing the ink to thicken or to solidify. As a result, a normal ink-discharge operation may become difficult.
Thus, for known inkjet printers, a moderately firm rubber blade is pressed against the ink discharge surface of the print head and slid along the ink discharge surface. In this way, the thickened and solidified ink attached to the ink discharge surface is wiped off to clean the print head. Related to this, technology for improving the effectiveness of wiping by rotating a plurality of blades attached on a rotation axis is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 57-34969.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 56-101866, technology for removing ink and dust from ink discharge holes by suction using a suction pump is disclosed.
In such known technology, a moderately firm rubber blade is pressed against the ink discharge surface of the print head and slid along ink discharge surface to wipe off ink on the ink discharge surface. This blade applies great force to the ink discharge surface and, in some cases, damages the ink discharge surface. When using the blade, cleaning depends solely on the effectiveness of wiping. However, when the ink discharge holes are cleaned only by wiping, sometimes ink residues are left in the holes. Similarly, even when a plurality of blades is used, sometimes the ink discharge surface is damaged and ink residues are left around the ink discharge holes.
When removing ink and dust from the ink discharge holes using suction pumps, extra ink needs to be sucked out from the ink discharge holes. As a result, ink of the inkjet head is wasted.